Answer

By default, the Open statement searches for files within the Notes program directory (not the Notes data directory). The documentation does not clearly indicate that the Open statement searches the program directory by default. This documentation issue was reported to Quality Engineering as SPR #MGAN4DRS23 and has been addressed in Notes/Domino 6.0.

The documentation for the Open statement's Filename parameter now reads as follows:

fileName A string expression indicating the file to open. fileName may include a complete path. If you do not specify a drive and a directory, LotusScript looks for the file in the default directory on the default drive. If you specify a drive but no directory, LotusScript looks for the file in the default directory of the specified drive. On platforms without drive letters, the default directory is used. If you specify a fileName that does not exist, LotusScript generates an error if the mode is Input; for all other modes, LotusScript creates the file and opens it.

Workaround: If you would rather work with files stored in the data directory, you must specifically reference the data directory in your code.